A Million is a Statistic
by Mackatlaw
Summary: Because I wondered what it would be like riding home with a mass murderer. Set between New X-Men 115 and 116. "The man with the ruby-red eyes rubs his tired lids, and looks at the human wreckage in front of him."
1. RubyRed Eyes

A Million is a Statistic

by Mackatlaw

The man with the ruby-red eyes rubs his tired lids, and looks at the human wreckage in front of him. The three-faced mutant smells like cooking bacon, and what's left of him could be hung up on a skewer to cure. That doesn't bear much thinking about, so he turns away, and considers thoughtfully the launching pad and the small Sentinels, baby ones, really, that buzz around him and Logan. Without further orders there's no telling what they'll do. They haven't attacked yet, but their sensors must be aware of the two mutant biosignatures in front of them.

It's a good thing voice commands are so damn slow, and that Wolverine has not to date showed any significant inhibitions when it comes to combat decisions. Wolverine...Logan...Best to stick with Wolverine for now. Allow more human error to creep in now, more soft emotions, and neither will get back. And it's very important that they and their prize do.

"Cyclops? You got a plan? Because I'd love to hear it."

The shorter man is kneeling on the floor, looking at the wrinkled old woman with a slit throat who is nonetheless still breathing, and smiling. The blood has already crusted from where he cut her vocal chords, and I note that fact along with everything else. He'd like to kill her, I can tell by the struggle in his face, but he has it under control. I have myself under control, of course, but there was never any doubt about that. I'm all about control, because people who act under emotions make sloppy decisions.

The news from the media globe suspended in mid-air is getting worse, and I need more time to analyze what I'm hearing. I reach a decision. "Of course. Sleeper hold, now. Then we get the plane I saw in the hangar. I made sure not to break it when I came in."

Logan looks relieved. He's good at tactical decisions, but he hates the burden of command. It's what made him such a good weapon for the government and what makes him so useful now. And who can blame him? Most people want someone to tell them what to do. I don't particularly like giving orders. I'm just very, very good at it. I used to say that everyone should be free to make up their own minds, that all they needed sometimes was someone to point them in the right directions, that the Professor was always right.

I also used to lie to myself a lot. That was before En Sabah Nur. Apocalypse removed all my illusions. I don't even miss them, really. I can no more stop leading, stop thinking of the consequences, than I can decide to kill myself. None of those choices are logical. Someone, after all, has to lead, and if I don't do a decent job, someone else will do worse.

Wolverine obeys and knocks her out, applying pressure on the carotid arteries leading to the brain until she goes unconscious. No telling how long it'll work.

"Are we taking her with us?" he asks. "She killed John."

"And she may have killed a lot more than that," I reply. I know Logan can hear the news channels onscreen behind us. But he's still in a state of single focus for combat, hypersensitive, but only focused on immediate threats. The muddle of voices on the globe are disorienting, harmless, so ignored by his senses. I keep my moments slow and easy, as I note his eyes inadvertently tracking my movements.

"Just do it, Wolverine. We'll talk about it on the plane."

I hope using his nom de guerre will help remind him where and who we are – soldiers, in a war. Civilian names are for downtime and civilian life. I give a couple of reasons for the decision, because it makes Wolverine feel good to think he has one besides my say so.

"We can't leave her for the authorities – it's too risky both for them and for us. Bring her onboard and I'll explain more en route."

He grunts, satisfied. "How about the robots?"

Metals welds to metal behind me, and I hear the hiss and pop as circuit breakers are installed, the robots following their mandate to build and improve themselves. They're still effectively considering us as neutralized prisoners. That will change.

"Once we resupply the plane, I'll take the contacts back off and destroy her command room and as many of these wild Sentinels as possible, to prevent them from stopping us. They're still following their last orders, but when we try to leave the base they may target us. They certainly can't be allowed to roam free. We'll call SHIELD as soon as we're in the air."

And so we do it. After refueling, I open my eyes wide and focus on holding the optic energy back for a second or two. Just long enough to take off the contacts. Of course, I never could have done this even a year ago. Brain damage. But did you know brain cells regenerate? The brain is far more plastic than is conventionally believed. Stem cells remain active even in an adult, and they're constantly replenishing what is lost. Usually it's not enough for us to notice, given the amount of cells we lose after a certain age.

But the merging with Apocalypse, among its many side affects, had some pleasant surprises, probably because he was living in and making active places in my brain that are not normally used. I may never have full control of what I lost as a child, but I can achieve enough control on the centers responsible for long enough to put in or take out the – very painful -- ruby quartz polymers.

And control, of course, is my personal religion.

A few minutes later, the thrumming roar of the plane fills my ears as we take off, and I watch the explosions below as fire and light turn the base into an inferno. Wolverine watches with pleasure and satisfaction, but I'm not so satisfied. We didn't get them all. We couldn't. All I can do is hope that without a central command station for a nervous system, the Sentinels will be slowed down enough that they can be eventually hunted down and destroyed. I don't know how they came to be there. I don't know who this woman is or who the other body was. I do, however, have a very keen interest in asking her some questions about these things.

"Cyke? She's starting to wake up."

I'm not in the mood for more foolishness, especially given the reports I'm beginning to piece together on the radio. From what SHIELD said when I called them, coming out to this base may not be the most pressing problem at hand. Wolverine and I are still trying to assimilate what's happened.

"There's a medical kit back there, standard issue for these planes. Grab a syringe of morphine and inject her."

It's low tech, but very practical. She falls back drooling with a stupid smile on her file, and I ask Wolverine to wrap her up carefully in a blanket. He looks at me like I've gone insane.

"What do you care if she's warm? She may have just killed everyone in Genosha. I don't give a flying fuck if she's warm. Open the plane and I'll toss her out."

"We can't. You know we can't, or you'd have done it earlier. We have to have a culprit," I tell him calmly and quite coldly. "We need proof to prevent a war between mutants and humans."

Wolverine laughs, disbelievingly, then stops, uncertain. Reflected in the windshield he opens his mouth, then closes it again, and stares broodingly out the window to the horizon. We have a long ride back home. After a while, I turn on the news. When we get a little closer to home, I'll play with my telepathic link to Emma some, but right now, I want to know what's going on. When the confirmatory report comes across the transatlantic radio, he has nothing to say for a long while, and neither do I. Sixteen million dead. We scan the bands, and they all say basically the same thing. Giant Sentinel robots with high-energy weapons attacked the island of Genosha, home to the greatest percentage of mutants in the world. No survivors are known at this date.

Sixteen million. I can't begin to comprehend that, and neither can he, I don't think. Magneto, dead? I bring his face to mind as I pilot the ship, making periodic course adjustments with a steady hand. No, I can't visualize him dead. I just see him laughing at us, flying in his costume, or making speeches as the prime minister from the cable networks of his new country. He's too alive in my mind, as are all the other people I knew there. Emma? Emma was there too. No, I can't imagine her dead either. In fact, the thought of her in her white costume, all in leather, makes me hard like I haven't been with Jean since I got back. Emma is all about sex, blind rut, no caring or tenderness about it. But that makes me think about what Apocalypse left behind in my head, so I stop thinking about that. Being with Apocalypse for a year taught me a lot about not thinking.

It's like Stalin said: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." The idea being that a single person is the human face of a tragedy. There are just too many numbers in it to wrap my head around; you can't see a million objects in your head. But you can see one. I turn my head around and I see, in the cramped confines of the plane, that one person.

She's not a victim. She's not dead, nor is she innocent, whoever she is. She may in fact be the greatest mass murderer that ever lived. I suppose "greatest" isn't the most appropriate word – but there's no notoriety here yet to really use the word. Infamy requires fame. But she's all I have to get a hold on the reports that I'm hearing. I look at her, tied up and drugged, lying on the floor, and in the satisfied grin she has even asleep, I can see the satisfaction of a killer. Murderer? No, because something has to be human to be murdered, and I don't think she sees us as human. Mutants like us are just cockroaches, and she didn't mind killing everyone in Genosha to get the mutants who were living there. I tighten my grip on the stick and ignore the urge to rub my eyes for what seems the thousandth time today. I have to keep it together. I have to be clear-headed for what's coming next.

Behind me, Wolverine clears his throat to speak.


	2. The Right Stuff

A Million is a Statistic 2?

The Right Stuff

I clear my throat cautiously. I'm not quite sure what to say here, and I'm still having trouble getting a grip on what's happening in Genosha. Cyke seems to know what he's doing, though, and he's making the right decisions in a crisis. At least, he's making decisions, and somebody has to. I can't do it. I don't trust myself to. When I make decisions, people get killed, because I'm crazy. When Scott makes decisions, most of his people get home, or if they don't, it's not because of anything he did.

Scott's not been the same since he got free from Apocalypse. I know it, the Professor knows it, and he knows it. He's even colder on the outside, even more disciplined, and he's cynical in a way that disturbs me.

But it doesn't matter. None of that matters, because Scott is all we have. I remember a story about John Glenn, how the scientists at NASA would do tests to make sure the astronauts could handle stress. No matter what they did, the wires hooked up to John never got any reaction, because he was just that cool. Noises, lights, yelling, exercise, whatever – he could take it without his heart rate skipping a beat. So finally the research guys dropped a big anvil behind him. He didn't say a word or even sweat, but his heart rate spiked up one big mother of a jump. When he got out of the booth, all he said was, "You bastards."

That was Glenn. And that's Scott, too, because he's our John Glenn. He's got the Right Stuff, and he's the best leader we've got. Anything happens to him again the team might as well pack it in, because that's it. Without him we're just a bunch of people in funny outfits. All I've got is the Bad Stuff, and I know it. Someone has to lead, someone has to be in charge, and that's Scott. The Prof is impressive with his powers and his money and his sound bites, but he's for show. He gets people fired up, he's got the ideas, but he needs Scott to get them going in the right direction.

Only thing is, Scott scares me. He can makes decisions cold that I'd have to make hot, and he gets them right. But even though Summers was ice cold all the way through Ecuador and getting us off the base, I can smell trouble rising off of him that he can't hide. No human could sense it, but I'm like a dog – or a wolf. Something's bothering him in a way that the news about Genosha didn't. I dunno what it is, but I need to find out. I do my best to be subtle, while painfully aware that I don't really know how.

"Scott...Cyclops...Y'know, things are going to be different after this, aren't they? They have to be. What are we going to do about it"

He doesn't reply for a while, but I can tell he's thinking of what to say. I let him. I'm in no rush to get home. I didn't do anything wrong -- well, at least not this time -- but I still didn't stop the bad guy in time. So we're screwed. But Scott will have a plan. He always does, that's what I like about him. He may be a guy with a stick up his ass, but he's a planner and I'm not. At least not for anything on a regular basis. If I planned the menus for the mansion, we'd be eating hamburgers and french fries all the time, because I put off decisions until I have to see what's in the fridge. Then I just cook whatever looks easiest, which usually involves the grill or boiling oil. Scott, on the other hand, reads recipes, makes balanced menus, and assigns grocery shopping to get every ingredient. Then he actually makes the food. That's why he's team leader; you couldn't pay me to have the job. I didn't always feel that way until I had to lead. The less said about that, the better.

"The professor will crack her mind like an eggshell. We'll strap her into a chair into the basement while we keep her sedated and find out her secrets. Then we'll figure out what to do with her."

I blink, startled. I was expecting a little more of a long-term plan. I also wasn't expecting that particular short-term one.

"Uhh...Scott, I thought you didn't approve of torture? And what I mean is, what are we going to DO! She just blew up Genosha."

He nods. "I'm surprised at you, Wolverine. Sometimes the means do justify the ends. They don't excuse it, but I don't think Cassandra is a person, and the same standards that we give a person don't apply here. That's why the rules change. When we find out what she knows, we'll give her to SHIELD or the United Nations. The rest is spin control."

I take a long look at Scott as a muscle in his cheek twitches, while I take in what he's telling me. Are Scott and I friends? I dunno. We haven't killed each other yet and I guess we're not going to. I even like having him around most of the time, though I'd hate to admit that. But he knows it anyway, because what I figure out through instinct, he figures out by paying attention and using his brain. We go around and around a lot, but we're two sides of the same coin. No repression and total repression: chaos and order. I guess we need each other for some kind of balance. Even when we hate each other's guts, and sometimes we do, we're still... friends? Buddies? Partners? Teammates. Something. It's a bond we can't break, probably shouldn't even try to explain. Then the first report comes in over the radio, and I stop wondering how close my buddy and I are.

"Live from CNN, this is Wolf Blitzer. These are real-time satellite photos of the devastation of Genosha. As you can see, the island is under attack from giant robots of as yet-unidentified make, though experts will weigh in on the matter shortly. Over half the manmade structures in Genosha have already been destroyed, and the swarm is progressing rapidly over the remainder. No help from nearby countries is estimated to be forthcoming, in part because of Genosha's strict policy on nearby military bases. The closest United Nations contingent is still at least an hour away. America may have the ability to interfere, but only by deploying satellite or long-range missiles herself. Any superhuman intervention, whether independent or government-backed such as the Avengers, is only speculation at this point. The President is expected to come on shortly to make a speech."

Scott punches a button, and images of giant robots,

like refugees from some stupid Saturday morning cartoon, fill the viewscreen. Only these refugees are knocking over actual skyscrapers, not cartoon figures, and the people aren't getting back up. They look like little ants running along the street. Toylike cars are gridlocked on the interstate, but there's nowhere to go to. The Sentinels point their particle beams and their lasers and whatever the hell else they've got, and the city keeps blowing up. I'm horrified, but I can't look away.

We've got to get back to the mansion. I start to tell Scott to step on it, but even as the words leave my mouth, I feel the hopelessness. The news is already outpacing us, events moving beyond control, and maybe past anyone's reach.

Next: Reap the Whirlwind


End file.
